well coming up on r t n.s.a. whistleblower edward snowden still remains in moscow while he's hidden from the public eye the n.s.a. continues to claim that their surveillance expansion is justified more on the story coming up the supreme court has spoken the highest court in the u.s. give supporters of marriage equality two major weapons the sights and sounds of today's historic decision from here in washington coming up. the iris now faces a new scandal thousands and funds from this department were misused for outrageous purchases we'll tell you more on that later in tonight's show. with it's wednesday june twenty sixth eight pm in washington d.c.

i'm margaret hell you're watching r.t. . we begin with an update on the national security agency whistleblower edward snowden and the disclosures he leaves following revelations that the n.s.a. was collecting the correspondence of american citizens the clandestine organization released a faction attempting to explain the legal justification for obtaining that data the only problem the fact sheet isn't all that factual according to senators mark udall and ron wyden in an open letter of the end to n.s.a. director keith alexander the senators wrote that we are disappointed to see that this fact sheet contains and the accurate statement about how section seven zero two authority under the foreign intelligence surveillance act has been interpreted by the u.s. government and our judgment this in accuracy is significant as a patrice protections for americans privacy as being significantly stronger than they actually are explaining the error would compromise classified information

according to the spokesperson for senator wyden speaking to the guardian and response to the letter of the n.s.a. pull the fact sheet and suggested that citizens look directly at the law to figure out what kind of powers they actually give intelligence gathering agencies meanwhile the man who brought all of these programs to light snowden remains in the transit area of the moscow airport the u.s. issued a warrant for snowden's arrest and has cancelled his u.s. passport which may have capstone snowden stuck as he awaits a sudden asylum decision from ecuador to discuss this i was joined earlier by r.t. correspondent to bang most say i started off by asking her just what's next for snowden. well you know that's been to the debate of the moment over snowden being holed up here at the airport but you must understand that upon traveling from hong kong he was of hong kong the chinese government did i ask for extradition papers or

from the usa to him that they wouldn't extradite him to the u.s. because the papers were not officially properly done hence they decided that they wanted to let him go on his free will he was able to travel from hong kong what happened is that the u.s. then decided to revoke his passport now whether that happened while he was on was that was in the el when he arrived in moscow that information we don't know what we do know though is that we can lease and of the julian assad's team had said that ecuador had helped in finding papers for him refugee status papers now what that actually means is that he's able to travel as a refugee whether that means that he be able to travel from intercontinental now that's the big question this is the reason why we believe that he's still holed up here at the moscow is trying to sort out those papers so you'll be able to leave the country now is he going to be holed up here for the next eighteen me as well that's the that's what we're still waiting to hear what we do know is that al queda

did say that they're not going to wait until the not to make this decision as quickly as possible they're going to actually take as long as you review the case as it was in the case of julian assange in london they said that it might take up to two weeks up to two months so we don't know as yet as to how long he'll be holed up here and what his travel plans are if indeed he is still in that transit zone and why is he in the transit zone as no one has seen him as yet ok well as i understand it the us this morning handed over the job of collecting snowden from russia to the u.s. deputy secretary of state bill burns a decorated diplomat with contacts in moscow and it's not clear whether burns will fly to moscow yet or not but how effective do you think this is going to be this latest move. what you know moscow has been quite clear in terms of not going to extradite snowden and to the us of a verse said that he has not stepped onto russian soil

days nothing that they can do in fact they're not even in contact with him and so their bare hands are tied there's nothing that they can do in terms of diplomatic solutions i mean the u.s. has been really harsh in terms of the rhetoric of the u.s. politicians saying that moscow as well as the chinese government are not cooperating with them saying that they need to hand over snowden immediately but as we all know that russia does not have an exhibition treaty whether the u.s. the in fact or so you know in reiterated by of the president saying that there is a stage in that they need to hand over snowden it is absurd that he doesn't want to get involved in that in fact he went on as far as compared this whole situation to a pig in a barber shop trying to be shed and him running around so there's a whole chasing around a whistle blower someone he referred to as a human rights activist someone who wanted to share information free speech as he said he says that that the u.s. and needs to just take

a step back and hopefully relations will not be tarnished by this ongoing snowden case who it sounds like and as you mentioned president putin earlier stated that russia technically doesn't have x. tradition treaty with the united states so we know that the other factors at play may they may come into play here as as the u.s. one snowden. did the u.s. doesn't want snowden now i want to take an example of what happened to julian assange when he actually asked for asylum add to the ecuador government you stated at the door and government decision to grant him that asylum was because of the following fact that they felt that he would be actually die. the united states well those charges of military and diplomatic leaks that he leaked to the media and said that he might not to face a fair trial in fact they were pretty fearful that he might be tortured and there might be he might be subjected to abuse he might be subjected to humiliation and

those are some of the words they use in terms of explaining why they decided to give him that asylum and terms of snowden should he be actually guided baggett to the united states what kind of treatment will he get now those are some of the things that they could do an embassy is going to be thinking about in terms of will he get a feed trial will he be tortured or will he be humiliated i mean the flow of who he is being called a spy is dangerous is already out so i'm pretty sure that they could during government is taking all of this in consideration when making this decision saying as we've seen in the past with julian assange saying that his human rights. he's a human rights activist and if he were to be extradited that would be against his human rights and so they would be thinking about that when they're reviewing snowden's case now whether he's going to be i mean he's still holed up in a transit zone so whatever he's waiting for right now whatever his decision is in

terms of waiting is he waiting for the storm to come down is waiting for the media to stop taunting him to stop following him around is this the decoys those are all the questions that we're all trying to figure out right now i'm sure looking back at how julian as sons in his case went by they must of thought about it must have thought of two wives and how else to make his transition into a safe haven much a better so i don't think it's a surprise that we're finding that he's still holed up here and that all of this confusion is going on perhaps is to confuse everybody else so that they could have a safe passion to his next destination which according to all sources right now could most likely be ecuador to run we have to leave it there always good to see you that was our to correspond to say. the media frenzy surrounding edward snowden may have reached a tipping point the coverage shifted from the original story the n.s.a.'s program snowden revealed his mysterious travel plans but are they focusing on the right

aspects of the story or he's guy and just a can an honest i'll see a church going to analyze the media and political reaction here in the u.s. u.s. secretary of state john kerry hinted at possible consequences that russia may face correspondence snowden saying at times russians have criminals in the us there we're looking for and he said the u.s. had cooperated on handing over seven of them in the past two years although if it were a russian whistleblower who stood up for civil liberties in russia it's kind of hard to imagine the u.s. handing them over very quickly especially the u.s. was not legally obliged to do so and in the case of snowden we heard the russian president say russia had no legal authority to stop him from traveling formally he hasn't crossed the russian border is a transit passenger didn't need a russian and he hasn't committed any crimes in russia moscow says russia doesn't want to have anything to do with mr stone it but it's amazing how this story which had absolutely nothing to do with russia is all about russia not much of the media

here has turned the whole snowden story into a story about putting the invite lawmakers and experts who focus on russian poison here's for example senator mccain weighing in on this story. we got to start dealing with vladimir putin in a realistic fashion for what he is he's an old k.g.b. colonel apparatchik dreams of the days of the russian empire and he continues to stick to stanley. broad variety of ways this kind of narrative in the media that's focused on brochures certainly helps build up negative public opinion on snowden and eventually discredit his revelations the focus is not just on russia but also on china and you hear u.s. officials blast hong kong for letting snowden fly but what about one of these revelations the fact that the u.s. spied on chinese research center. the university here is the explanation that we heard from secretary kerry our surveillance activities on them it's our surveillance activities anonymously on thousands of chinese and the chinese

university anonymously in order to be able to track terrorism and if there is an act of terrorism or some linkage that is appropriate some indication of whatever it is could be anywhere in the world whatever it is then you have to go to court and you have to have court approval in order to do anything that is actually named specific person specific. secretary kerry said the u.s. was spying on trying these with their centers in universities to find terry a lot of people would find that response quite confusing china would probably not buy it so you see the u.s. officials being quite of a sit on what they're actually doing preferring to focus on the messenger instead on edward snowden and here's my colleague on a theatre athena on how the media here goes along with that narrative some journalists believe the shocking us government spying scandal is the biggest story

of our lifetime i think my desk certainly had the authorities to to wiretap anyone from you or your account to a federal judge to even the president if i had a personal e-mail but big brother shamelessly watching millions of people in secret seems to be turning into a little more than a cat and mouse chase by the american mainstream media snowden snowed snowden going through these files. is not. was terribly sexy is this just me if you can search the school it was terribly sexy painting the president. of star wars in yet another hollywood blockbuster brought to you by the so-called news of the climax the fact that a major violation of privacy rights is being conducted left and right has been wiped out of this. crypt this is a country based on no reasonable search and seizure if you wanted something else you could head somewhere else but that was kind of in fact i think it might be in the constitution let me check yes yes it's in the constitution but all this

unconstitutional nonsense is far from most of the media's focus i'm shocked when i look at the coverage i saw the i think it was the c.n.n. show and they had a picture of the o.j. simpson car chase when he was trying to escape from the cops ten or twenty years ago i guess seventeen years ago as if that's what we're looking at right now and o.j. simpson car chase but we haven't heard a word hardly a word about the massive surveillance scheme or peoples all over the world when the historic privacy leak is covered snowden is centrists and not the substance of the n.s.a. scandal betraying your country is kind of a fashion statement what to me the national security kim carr dash and a guy's got a completely backwards if the media than mez made snowden came car dash the end of the world right that that that they have created that they have made that intentionally as an alice in wonderland first comes the verdict then the trial with pundits eager to shoot the messenger we need to get very very serious about treason

and old by the way for treason as in the case of bradley manning or edward snowden you bring back the death penalty he could be the worst guy in the world let's say he made charles manson look like tom hanks let's say they found his girlfriend edna d.h. and he ran around flick and baby's ears just to watch him cry all right let's say he was the worst human being it would have nothing to do with the fact that our government is spying on every american that is the story i'm questioning whether the reporter who broke the scandal with snowden as his source should be punished along with the whistleblower why shouldn't you mr green will be charged with a crime to news reports focused on snowden's girlfriend what's curious she also packed everything up and left for the mainland to pointing fingers at any other government. but their own whether china or russia has been able to sort of suck out that knowledge from those computers while he's been in their countries of voiding the issue at hand seems to be a priority it is true that the big stories that really affect the nature of the

united states and what our government really is are stories they want to ignore the media coverage of the n.s.a. scandal olet must test for journalism that most are feeling instead of cleaning up their act and dwindling ratings networks are busy looking for bad guys elsewhere instead of looking the real villain in the face while a media war breaks out over supporting or hating edward snowden as little airtime as possible is actually dedicated to the spying on unsuspecting citizens itself the biggest privacy leak in recent u.s. history has shown the media to have little ability to deal with complex issues instead indulging themselves in a manhunt yet again but then again this shouldn't be too shocking when the finger pointing every now and then is paused it's stories like this that fill air time. or . i'm going to r.t.

new york the supreme court issued a historic decision this morning on the defense of marriage act the ruling called doma unconstitutional saying it didn't offer equal protection under the law so can homosexual couples now have their wedding cake and federal benefits to artist mecca lopez went to the supreme court this morning and she has that story. they were the two words same sex couples across the country have been waiting to hear for nearly two decades struck down the supreme court ruled five to four today that the defense of marriage act is unconstitutional it was a decision that paved the way for another two word phrase i do for getting married i guess fair enough i have my parents' house in massachusetts but were legally getting married in d.c. now gay and lesbian couples in twelve states and the district of columbia have the same rights to federal benefits like social security and joint tax filing as their

heterosexual counterparts it's a decision that impacts over one thousand federal laws on family benefits but for many of the supporters outside the supreme court it's about more than money we paid first class taxes and are still treated as second class citizens in some states around the country as well it needs to be equal it's time and it's bigger than gay rights i want to go beyond just a statement of gay marriage my lover and i have been together twenty six years we're entitled to everything anyone else's but we don't need their endorsement of our lovemaking none of their business that's america revolution we need right now it's nobody's business if you're a consenting adult not to tap my phone not to go after my e-mails to worry about my such life none of their business that's why i'm here for the hundreds gathered outside it's about equality i'm always pictured just me walking down the aisle and seeing my broom then when i realize that. that kind of question all of

it because i didn't feel like i would be able to do that i felt like i was never going to be accepted but that i would never have the chance but with this it just it reassured that dream both the ruling itself and the way people who gathered outside receive the news prove how much things have changed since doma. was signed into law back in one thousand nine hundred six but where the supreme court decisively ruled in favor of gay rights for doma it punted on proposition eight a law voted on by the people of california that made gay marriage illegal in two thousand and eight the justices punt reverted back to an appeals court making gay marriage legal in california now crowds outside of the supreme court today are obviously very elated very excited about both of the supreme court's rulings however they are approaching this with cautious optimism realizing that this is only a small step and they were a long walk but for couples across the country that long road ahead is worth the journey it's taken

a while as you look back on our history african-americans went through struggles women went through struggles for getting equal rights and no we're not all the way there on all fronts we're all getting there and so there's this is a huge hurdle and for those who do live in states affected by today's ruling couples like amanda and carolyn now have other things to worry about instead of their legal standing it will be wearing a dress however my dress can't quite zip it up at the moment so we may you know j.p. or every other guy to every other way that might not know that they just like regular be false reporting in front of the supreme court in washington d.c. i got to find some shoes yes meghan lopez r.t. in spite of impeachment calls from republicans to throw us president barack obama out of office he appears to be unimpeachable although he gets a lack of a lot of flak from both sides of the aisle for many of his decisions his most egregious abuses of power seem to be attracting bipartisan support our see sam sachs brings us more. there isn't

a we can that hasn't gone by that someone says to me michele what in the world are you all waiting for and congress why aren't you impeaching the president he's been making unconstitutional actions since he came into office so it's really no big surprise republicans in congress want to impeach president obama they've been trying to do it for nearly five years now but all the things they've tried to pin on the president from fast and furious to benghazi to his birth certificate have all barely move the needle on the abuse of power meter right here and while republicans desperately wait for an actual scandal to break president obama has knowingly and unapologetically committed actions that could be taken as an abuse of power in legitimate grounds for impeachment proceedings first up there is the crackdown on journalists from the massive snoop on more than one hundred reporters at the associated press to the investigation to fox news reporter james rosen the obama administration has launched

a new president assault on journalists and that includes whistleblowers as the administration has now charged eight individual whistleblowers under the espionage act that's more than any other administration in history combined so any calls from the right to investigate the administration's suppression of the first amendment right to a free press no and then there's the targeted killing of american citizens right here in his speech before the national defense university president obama directly acknowledged his decision to kill an. american citizen in yemen who was alleged to be working with al qaida plotting attacks there was no trial just a death sentence handed down from the highest office in the land and weeks after the strike that killed in war a lock e another u.s. strike killed his sixteen year old son of bill romano aki also an american citizen . and despite what appears to be a blatant violation of the constitution's guaranteed against deprivation of life without due process of the law republicans for the most part support the president

on this too here's congressman peter king. i think the president is acting according to the law according to the constitution the president's main job is made obligation is to protect the security of the american people and the fact that the enemy may happen to be an american citizen should not give that enemy any any immunity so that's that and finally there's domestic surveillance edward snowden's leaks have revealed a vast and intrusive domestic surveillance operation run out of the nation's intelligence agencies that is in the process of or at least capable of searching in seizing every single electronic communication from every single american apparently in direct contradiction to the fourth amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures and these programs they were created under his predecessor in the white house have been embraced and utilized by president obama but where are

congressional republicans on this senator lindsey graham. i'm of horizon customer it doesn't bother me one bit for the national security administration phone number . not one bit and so the president has been given blanket immunity to continue with the most controversial policies of his administration policies that arguably blow giant holes in the constitution meanwhile republicans they're desperately manufacturing scandals ripe for impeachment proceedings this is the bizarro world of washington d.c. and it speaks to a much larger point about why president obama won't be impeached just as bush wasn't impeached it's because empire and all the discontents that come with managing empire is a bipartisan endeavor in this town and washington same sex are to leave these gauhar your finances it seems that someone if the i.r.s. was not watching their own spending inside the agency and the report from the

treasury inspector general says that some iris employees use the agency's credit cards for wine and pour the report found that between two thousand and ten and two thousand and eleven sat employees made more than two hundred seventy three thousand purchases on these credit cards less than one percent of those were deemed illegitimate among the improper spending more than three thousand dollars for a popcorn machine and prizes for an employee event diet pills romance novels expensive bottles of wine and in two cases the i.r.s. credit cards were used to buy online pornography however the employee said that the poor purchase resulted from a stolen credit card the inspector general is still investigating whether or not that's true. therefore it said that all of these purchases came from ninety four employees none of whom were disciplined for their actions. but this isn't the first time the i.r.s. has faced a scandal there's

a scandal where it looked like the i.r.s. unfairly targeted conservative organizations about for tax exempt status but now it seems that the targeting wasn't as one sided as earlier believed for more on that the residents worry her finest. months ago i read it mid two targeting right wing tea party groups for extra clothes greenies the revelation caused a media crap storm to commence right leaning news organizations like fox news with absolutely ballistic calling it a huge scandal they used it as an example of how obama's presidency is all about

criticizing republicans and how corrupt he is a left leaning news organization like m s m b c and well almost everyone else decided to view this story from a historical perspective they were quick to point out that the i.r.s. targeted liberal groups during the bush years they used that historical context as a basis to dismiss the story as nothing but a right wing conspiracy to bash obama under their logic the story wasn't even newsworthy but now newly released i.r.s. documents show that not only was the i.r.s. looking for words like tea party and patriot they were also looking for words like progressive that's right it turns out the i.r.s. was targeting any group right or left that might have different ideas about how

this country should be run any group that might have political ideas that could shake things up in washington was targeted so the story went from the i.r.s. is targeting one side of the fence to the i.r.s. is targeting both sides of the fence. so the media should be doubly outraged to then right or wrong. instead they declared the scandal over the story is moot because apparently two wrongs do make a right at least that's how and that's n.b.c.'s rachel maddow seemed to take it when she said turns out it wasn't just tea party groups it was also groups labeled progressive which means the whole that you go over now right. matthau wasn't alone numerous headlines from numerous outlets declared the story over they weren't more outraged by finding out that the i.r.s. targeted more groups they just decided it was over why because they could no longer

use the story for what is so obviously there was no real purpose partisan politics so not only does the i.r.s. targeting standalone prove that our government will go to lengths to prevent any real thinking right or left that might threaten the powers that be the scandal now proves that our mainstream media will go to lengths to preserve their right or left narrative that above all else is clearly the mainstay of the need stream tonight to talk about that by following man twitter at the residence. of jagger hit d.c. this week and made a few surprising disses concerning the president and the n.s.a.

the rolling stones music musician declared to rock n roll enthusiasm on june twenty fourth i don't think president obama is here tonight but i'm sure he's listening and from the stage of his concert at the horizon center whether or not obama was listening is still unclear what is clear though even our friends from across the pond are shocked by the n.s.a.'s massively sweeping surveillance. that's going to do it for a male for more on the stories we've covered go youtube dot com slash our three america check out our web site at r.t. dot com slash usa you can also follow me on twitter it underscored j underscore how old don't forget to tune in at nine pm for larry king now with special guest stone cold steve austin they're going to be talking about austin's time as a wrestling superstar and even more in his hit show redneck island for now well have a great night. when

you take three. point three. three. three. three. three blog video for your media project c.e.o. don carty dot com. plug in the prime interest i'm parry and boring broadcast live out of washington d c let's get to today's a prime headlines. bring fail as well federal reserve and the f.b.i. cia officials were hauled.